...two adults, two kids, and all their stuff wandering the world. (Plus two in college.)

Thursday, December 28, 2006

GSO Giveth and GSO Taketh Away

We don't have to bring such things as microwaves, vacuums, dryers and full-sized freezers with us as we move around, and each post has someone to take care of the housing pool and standard household issue. It's a definite plus, but also has its disadvantages.

The drawback comes with the wear and tear of what are essentially rental homes with rental appliances that have been through a lot of use and a lot of users. The other drawback arises from being at a Consulate that is allotted no money for replacement items. Everything is fixed and fixed again.Our washing machine flooded the kitchen once. It was repaired. It doesn't wash on any cycle but permanent press, but I can live with that. The dryer only works on one setting and doesn't cycle through, so if I forget after an hour to turn it off it will run all night. I haven't put in a work order yet since I can line dry items that don't need permanent press heat. Our top freezer didn't freeze, and the fridge part didn't cool, so yesterday we were given a replacement. It was bigger and nicer and cooled so well. Ice even froze in the freezer. We were tickled. Meanwhile six GSO guys were outside working on our fridge and another one (they brought it from the warehouse since... oh never mind).It was, unfortunately, a temporary replacement from a currently empty housing unit and today they took the nice, big, Better-Than-Ours fridge away. We have our fridge back and I've put it to the ice test. Can it make ice? If so, then it will be forgiven and welcomed back to the fold. But having the other one... ah, it was nice while it lasted.

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The GlobeHoppers

For those wondering, Germany is 6 hours ahead of EDT.

We're a Foreign Service family currently posted to Frankfurt, Germany after having spent 2 years in Manila, Philippines, 1 year in Lome', Togo (no, not Tonga), 3 years in Chennai, India, 3 years in Virginia, and 4 years in Amman, Jordan. We'll spend 3 years in Germany to graduate the boys from high school, and our next post is TBD 2019!

I am a former Army brat (lived in Belgium, Zaire, Algeria, Niger, visited too many places to list), now Foreign Service spouse. I tag along where ever Ian takes us and try to keep the family sane. Between 1996 when we got married and 2003 when we moved to Manila we lived in Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, and Florida, and visited several other states.

Rebecca traveled to Oman with chorus (2013), Ethiopia with Week Without Walls (WWW) 2014, Qatar with swimming (2014) and volleyball (2015), and Kuwait with basketball (2016). She also went to Amsterdam in 2017.

Rebecca and Nicholas traveled through Vietnam on WWW 2015 and Thailand for WWW 2016.

Katherine went to Kuwait with volleyball (2014) and France with WWW 2014, and did a semester abroad in Cork, Ireland in 2016. She's was in Dublin for her internship summer 2017.

Jonathon went to Kuwait with Academic Games (2015) and had a school trip to Berlin in 2016.

Ian has also been to Ethiopia (2006), Benin (2006), South Korea (2004), Liberia (2016), Central African Republic (2016), Cameroon (2016), Algeria (2017), Morocco (2017), Tunisia (2017), Turkmenistan (2017), and Suriname (2018). He also covers Sanaa and Tripoli (no travel there), Copenhagen and Accra. Ian aided after the Mumbai Massacre (2008), and also went to Bangalore and Hyderabad in India. A life goal for him is to serve in Russia or Canada, or really any place that has a decent hockey scene. He's happy that Frankfurt has the local Loewen team!